Evernote for Windows is our most popular version, used by hundreds of thousands of people everyday. Today, we’re excited to announce a major evolution in our Windows client: Evernote 4. Here’s why we think this is the best version of Evernote yet.
Starting from scratch
Evernote 4 is a major departure from Evernote 3.5 in every way. While 3.5 added tons of great new features, there were some problems we simply couldn’t fix: the blurry fonts, slow startup times, large memory footprint, and poor support for certain graphics cards were all issues that the technology behind 3.5 (Windows .net and WPF) was incapable of resolving. As a result, we ended up chasing down platform bugs rather than adding the great features our users wanted.
So we decided to start over from scratch, with fast, native C++ that we knew we could rely on. As you’ll see, the results are amazing. This new version will set a foundation for rapid improvement.
Blazingly fast
Evernote 4 is designed to give you a great experience on any computer that you use, whether you’re on a netbook, a five year old Windows XP machine or a super fast top-of-the-line Windows 7 computer.
On our test hardware, Evernote 4 starts five times faster, and uses half the memory of Evernote 3.5.
Simply beautiful
We redesigned every aspect of the user interface to be faster, simpler and more attractive. The new layout gets out of your way, so you can focus more of your attention on your notes and less on buttons and scrollbars. It also works better on various types of displays, aspect ratios and control devices. So, whether you use a mouse, keyboard or touchscreen to interact with your computer, you’ll have a great experience with Evernote 4.
Here are a few of our favorite user interface improvements:
- Space saving layout: The toolbar and menu bar are merged to take up less screen space. You can always switch to the old school layout in the Option menu.
- More responsive interface: Switching between notes, displaying searches, bringing Evernote into the foreground, and virtually all other interactions are much faster.
- Easier new note creation: We’ve added a New Note split button, which lets you pick the type of note you wish to create (text, ink or webcam). It will remember your selection for next time.
- Relocated Search Bar: Note search and the search description now reside directly over the note list—a more intuitive location. You can click the small arrow to open and close the search description. Closing the description gives you more room to view your notes list, opening it makes it easy to modify your search.
- Clearer note info: The note information panel is more crisp and clear with the title, notebook and source links right up top. Just like the search panel, you can open the note information panel to access the details. Navigating through the note info panel and tagging notes using your keyboard is fast and efficient.
- More ways to interact: Evernote 4 supports multitouch gestures and many keyboard shortcuts.
And much much more…
Much of Evernote 4 is focused on creating a great user experience and a powerful platform for huge new features in the coming months. Of course, we couldn’t launch something this big without adding a few gems:
Improved clipping
Clips are the most popular note-type in Evernote. So, for Evernote 4, we decided to give clipping a big upgrade. When clipping from Internet Explorer, Outlook and Firefox, you will now see a New Clip popup that lets you add tags and assign notebooks without leaving your current application. You can skip the dialog by holding down the Shift key.
Microsoft Outlook users will love the support for clipping messages, attachments and even multiple emails. Clipping from Internet Explorer and Firefox now preserves more styles, works more reliability and also takes advantage of the New Clip window.
Better editing
We spent the last 9 months improving note editing, and this baby has some great new additions. We’ve got:
- Improved support for tables (including adding columns and rows).
- Better support for bulleted and numbered lists.
- Better copy-paste support to and from Internet Explorer, Office and other applications.
- The note editor toolbar gives access to more colors and just looks sharp.
Smarter titles
Evernote is now smarter about how it handles note titles. The app will make a guess based on the type of information you have in your note. For example, it may use the first line of a note or the title of a web clip. You can always go in and edit the titles to be whatever you like.
Flexible printing
When you’re printing one or more notes you can click “Options” and check off which parts of the note information you want to include in the printout.
Windows 7: Jump Lists
In addition to adopting a Windows 7 look and feel, we’ve incorporated new Windows 7 features including Jump Lists that allow you to pin Evernote into your task bar and quickly access Evernote, sync, find or add notes even when Evernote isn’t running.
Windows 7: Auto-location
Evernote 4 also makes the most of the new geo-location capabilities of Windows 7. You will now be able to easily set the location of your notes. Tap on “Click to set location…” in the note info panel and your computer will figure out where it is and set the location of the note.
Hiding what you don’t need
To make the most efficient use of your screen, certain elements are hidden until you need them:
- Note info: Click the chevron near your note title to display note info.
- Search description: Click the chevron near the search bar to view and edit your search description.
- Zoom level: To adjust the size of thumbnails in Thumbnail view, bring your mouse near the bottom of the Note List. This displays the zoom control.
- Sync status: Whenever Evernote 4 synchronizes changes, a sync dialog appears along the lower right edge of the window.
Getting Evernote 4
Evernote 4 is available now for download!
Please note, installing Evernote 4 will replace your existing Evernote 3.5 installation.
We will publish an auto-update in the coming weeks for current Evernote 3.5 users who choose not to manually download Evernote 4.
Firefox users: Check for updates to get the latest Evernote 4-compatible version of the Evernote Firefox Extension.
298 Comments
Richard Milward
Interesting — I had to uninstall v.3.5 and folders left over from it and v.3 before reinstalling v.4 and having it work. But all seems good now — thanks!
cs white
I appreciate that there’s a way to skip the dialog box when clipping (by holding down the Shift key), but I’m wishing this could be moved to a preference.
For my workflow, I never want the box to pop up while I’m clipping – I want to tag and sort when I’m ready to focus on that task.
Just a thought!
Sam
I agree!! When I’m powering through Twitter I don’t want to have to think about it.
Hanpu
Evernote 4 does not recognize handwritten (“inked”) text during searches. Evernote 2 and 3.0/3.1 do. It is a shame, especially because Evernote makes and still actively develops RitePen, the best handwriting recognition software I know of, at least for English. I am sticking with versions 2.2 and 3.1, until Evernote lets version 4 recognize handwriting. Too bad, as version 4 is nicer than 3.5.
kk
It’s a bit hard for me to get used to the new interface, even though I like it much better, but it seems to be matter of one week. What I don’t like is that to move through menu bar, you have to click on each tab and it’s tiring for me. Also the,,popping up” window when I forget to hold down Shift slows me down. Overally I like this version
chadebrown
Is there a User Manual for version 4.1? (I see one for version 3.5 for example)
fuller
The only big disadvantage of Evernote relative to OneNote is the fact that I cannot mix ink and text in the same note – I do not understand if this has to do with the way the database is structured (a fundamental issue), or it would be simple to add to the list of features. I normally like to combine ink annotations with clips and typed text into a single note, and I do not see it possible in Evernote at present, but I would definitely welcome its addition to the list of features. A second suggested feature is the hierarchical notes, which will help much more in organizing content. I am obliged right now to use separate notebooks just in order to have one level hierarchy between different topics, but it is very limiting.
My thanks to the Evernote developers for this great product.
mm1772
Odd. I just upgraded from 3.5 to 4, but Evernote has completely disappeared from my Windows 7 system!
I launched 3.5. It asked me if I wanted to “Download and Install” and I said yes. It did some stuff and then rebooted. I logged back in and I can’t find any trace of Evernote except an *empty* 3.5 folder in Program Files (x86).
Ugur
Switched back to Win7 from Ubuntu and had to look up something in Evernote (3.5). It noticed me of an update so I updated, hesitatingly. And after install and reboot I was amazed. Everything that I hated about version 3.5 is gone! Version 4.1 starts super fast, the interface is more beautiful, navigation is much faster, responsiveness is much higher.
This piece of software makes me think that the move back to Win7 was a good move
Kudos Evernote dev-team! 
Brian
Yeah, I know how you feel. I miss Evernote when I am in Linux.
Note to Evernote developers: It is about time that you release Evernote for Linux! Ubuntu package preferred.
Also, I agree that ink recognition is a must. I have v3.1 and will not update until version 4 recognizes ink.
Sharon
I am also having a problem with handwriting recognition in Evernote 4. My handwritten ink notes using a Wacom Bamboo tablet are searchable in Evernote Web but are NOT searchable in Evernote 4 Windows. Will this be fixed? I’m a premium customer and would appreciate it if this worked.
Brian
One more thing that would be really nice: Add Spreadsheet support. This improvement to tables would be immensely useful, as it would allow us to create (or import) spreadsheets and have Evernote automatically recalculate any changes made to the spreadsheet.
Shacal
Lol, switch to native made this one of the crappiest update ever. Holding on of the 3.5 and creating own updates to assemblies. Sorry guys, but this update was stupid :/
Sting
It’s too bad that you really have no idea what you’re talking about. The only benefit to .net is that you have the full support of the microsoft marketing team behind you. You get the app built faster with the added benefit of bloat and incredibly terrible performance.
Chris
Evernote 4 rocks!! Superfast searching, zooming thumbnails. Bravo!
John
I upgraded to premium 4.2 but lost the right click “add to Evernote” capability when I am in outlook. Any ideas how to get it back?
Andrew Sinkov
John, please contact our support team: http://s.evernote.com/support
Scharfen
I can’t upgrade from 3.5 to 4. When the upgrade procedure ask me to reboot to be able to unistall 3.5 I do so. But this ends up in an eternal loop. 3.5 never gets uninstalled. Another problem is that I can’t uninstall it manually either. Evernote has disappeared from the “Add/remove program” list.
I’m using WinXP
Andrew Sinkov
Please contact Evernote support. They should be able to resolve this problem: http://s.evernote.com/support
Bruce
For the record, this describes my problem exactly. Only difference is that Evernote 3.5 is still in the add/remove list, but has no remove button on it. Hopefully online support can help…
Bruce
I solved this problem – it was the lack of admin privileges in my Windows user account. I waded through a lot of stuff in the online forum about version checkers and alternative uninstallers and such, but what helped was an offhand comment by breggol about needing to have admin privileges to uninstall the old version.
Renee
My son is using Evernote 3.5 to capture his school work. He is prompted every day to download Evernote 4, but we are hesitant to do that because we are not sure what will happen to his existing work. We’d really like to download Evernote 4, but want to be sure he won’t loose his current data. Please advise what happens to current data if you download. Thanks very much!
Andrew Sinkov
Renee, we recommend that you update to Evernote 4. All of your son’s notes are also stored on Evernote Web, so they won’t be lost. If you want to be extra sure, you can select all the notebooks in the account and export them from within Evernote for Windows.
Steven Buehler
Appears you killed support for coding against the enapiLib. I need to create some routines with Visual Basic and I’m can’t make heads or tails of your model.
KK
Which GUI framework did you use to make this?
Thanks.
J Drake
What have you learned with doing a new rewrite in C++?
I have recently embraced C++, and adopting C++11 features when available to me. Although I am doing something on the Mac right now I am eventually going to have to get my stuff to work on Windows.